Recent Germany trip
 

Hi all,

Thought I'd report on a recent trip to Germany (Koln/Dusseldorf).
I had visions of buying a blau sim card at a Saturn store, BUT, I arrived on a Sunday and didn't realize virtually all stores except for restaurants/bars are closed.
In Cologne I happened upon a shop in the main train station that was open, and bought the "best" sim card that they had to offer:
from ortel mobile. http://www.ortelmobile.de
It cost 20E which included 10E credit.

Calls to the US were 0.09E / min even less than dialing local! (which was 0.15 E/min--now it says 0.19?). However, though I didn't try it, it appears that incoming calls from US were 0.69E / min -- I got around this by using rebtel.

Also the website is relatively very good (with selection of languages). It uses the E-Plus network and you could buy topup cards at stores that sold them as well (again, see website for details), at 15 or 30E increments. I was able to use EDGE to download email onto my Treo 650 (I assume using E-Plus) which appeared to be pricey (~1+ E / session) for not a lot of Kb.

No, the 0.69E/min is when you ARE in the USA and you receive a call. If you are in Germany with a German card all incoming calls are free of charge.

Yes, everything closes on Sunday in Germany. Some states would like to change this, and there are loopholes to allow occasional opening in some states, but I don't think it'll happen in the next couple of years at least. Just be glad, shopping-wise, that you weren't here a few years ago, when all stores were legally required to close by 18:30 on weekn ights and 14:00 on Saturday. That law was loosened to 20:00 a decade ago, and finally abolished only six months ago.

Anyway, Ortel and Blauworld are the same thing, so no big deal. And yes, in Europe, there are never any charges for incoming calls if you are in the country the SIM card is from (you pay to receive only in other countries, and the price is capped by law within the EU at 49 cents plus tax). BTW, 69 cents to receive in the US is relatively cheap, as roaming charges for foreign users in the US are generally outrageous.

If you're thinking of going back, keeping the SIM alive shouldn't be too much trouble, either.

You mix up incoming and outgoing calls. While roaming within the European Union with a SIM card from a EU-state (note that Switzerland, Norway and further European countries are not EU-memberstates) rates are capped at € 0.49 for outgoing calls and € 0.28 for incoming calls.
This price cap will be further decreased to € 0.46 / € 0.22 in August and to € 0.43 / € 0.19 in August 2009.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nts_map_en.png

Yes, that's true. Receiving calls within the EU with Ortel, or any other SIM, would be 28 cents (placing them from within the EU to within the EU would be 0.49 plus tax=58 cents). Which makes roaming in the US seem all the more expensive...

0.24 if you exclude VAT.
And about the countries obliged for euroroaming, I read an EC document in which eurotariff is currently extended to non-EU EEA countries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area), namely Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Of course, eurotariff rates or lower may also be applied in other countries by decisions of particular operators.